The Shine Journal
Exceptional Flash, Poetry, Art and Photography!
Three From KJ Hannah Greenberg
Simple Combinations
Artemisia Witherspoon adjusted her goggles after donning her gloves. She disdained having to change her protective gear midlab, but Dr. Feffer was insistent on safety. A small amount of spilled iodine, which had begun to discolor both her hand and its latex coating, had meant that Artemisia had had to fish through her supply box for a new cover.
The way in which a metal salt formed from the direct reaction of a metal and a nonmetal was as interesting to Artemisia as was the anatomical weight of butterfly wings. The young woman reconsidered; actually, the anatomical weigh of an anthropod’s gossamer was a more interesting topic than was a redox reaction.
At least those shiny limbs were going to be the source of a wonderful template for Artemisia’s next venture into marketing. Mr. Ethan, the Introduction to Business teacher, had commented that Artemisia might, in spite of her intellectual fumbling, pull off a “C” if Artemisia could conceive of a clever logo for her fictitious textile company.
Whereas Artemisia was loath to sketch a seeming multitude of scales or to draw an even a lesser amount of tubular veins, she was willing to instruct her computer to simulate such components. Mr. Ethan liked pretty things and Artemisia like parties. Mom and Dad had promised Artemisia a grand graduation party if Artemisia’s average passed the 2.0 threshold.
Artemisia refocused on the matter of dissolving iodine in ethanol. Sam had picked a crummy day to have the flu. He had paired with Artemisia for social status. She had paired with him to glide through Chemistry II.
Artemisia sighed as she watched the liquid change color. She was in no mood to create exothermic reactions with anything or anyone other than Marcel Olupe. Yet, Marcel was in
Artemisia’s thoughts sifted back to forewings and hindwings. Biology had been a much better course. There had even been the week, after much ado was made about the essential qualities of nucleic acids, amino acids, sugars, lipids, and water, and about the dissimilarities between eukaryotic cells and prokaryotic cells, when the students had explored the differences between mitosis and meiosis.
Such talks had led to discussions about sex in the higher phylums. Marcel had given Artemisia many meaningful winks and glances during those conversations.
Using a small spatula, Artemisia added zinc powder to a test tube. A small amount of fine particles dropped beyond the parameter of her fume hood. Artemisia swabbed at that dust with her elbow, but missed. Meanwhile, the brown hue of the iodine continued to fade.
Quickly, Artemisia transferred a few drops of her filtrate to a slightly concave piece of glass. She though about Marcel’s shoulders. She thought about Marcel’s waist. She thought about her graduation party.
The next day, Sam was in attendance, but Artemisia was not. The honor student wondered, as he transferred zinc iodine into a beaker, why his popular partner had insisted on remaining in the computer lab, instead of showing up to class. He recalled her saying something about thorax muscles being responsible for flight. He recalled that she hadn’t asked how he was feeling.
Carefully, Sam clamped an electrode-containing bung to his beaker. At the next table, he could hear Marcel Olupe hee-hawing. Sam wondered if Marcel understood that, during flight, butterflies couple their fore and hindwings.
Sam wondered if Marcel cared about biology, about chemistry, or about anything academic. Everyone in the room, except Dr. Feffer, who regularly seemed oblivious to the obvious, could tell that Marcel enjoyed coxing Betty Nift to connect leads and crocodile clips to the front of her shirt. Marcel was infamous for his record in synthesis as well as for his sloppiness at decomposition.
Artemisia exploded into the classroom, heedless of detentions that such behavior might bring. She waved a few pieces of illustrated paper at Sam. The sheet on top, filled with words printed in Times New Roman font and with pictures of butterfly wings demarked into basal, discal, postdiscal, and submarginal regions, also contained, in purple, a large “80%.”
So enthralled was Artemisia with her score that she failed to notice that the fluid in Sam’s beaker was turning brown. Artemisia did not fail to notice, however, Marcel’s interactions with Betty.
In quick response, Artemisia grabbed Sam’s beaker and flung it at her adversary. Similarly, she swiftly slapped some unadulterated zinc powder on Marcel’s face.
Artemisia also threw the remnants of her seltzer bottle at her former beau. Even Dr. Feffer couldn’t move fast enough to deter the resulting combustion.
Betty ran to the classroom’s eye wash station, though no chemical had entered any of her orifices. Sam helped her. Later that term, Sam escorted Betty to the prom.
Marcel was treated to one of the spill neutralizers in the classroom kit, but not before second and third degree burns removed much of his comeliness. Weeks of hospitalization, followed by painful plastic surgery, filled the greater part of Marcel’s final high school term.
As for Artemisia, she was taken away in handcuffs. She passed her GED exam from within
During her incarceration, Artemisia became celebrated for her sketches of Swallowtails and of Metalmarks. The young murderer, with whom Artemisia shared a bunk, especially liked Artemisia’s Birdwings. Since Artemisia drew to scale, Artemisia’s acquaintance had plenty of identifiable osmeterium on which to design fresh tortures. That teenage killer could not help herself, upon hearing that Artemisia would still have a graduation party, for gifting Artemisia with another facial opening
Around that corner, I did see
A smiler quickly approaching me.
Looming my way, walking my street,
All shine, all teeth, all face replete.
I wanted no part, no bit, no sum,
Of a fellow focused on each part of “fun.”
In a breath, in spite of that fearsome sight,
I slipped safely to shadows, escaped into the night.
Too many gestures, neatly placed words,
Or warm-hearted feelings, make purposes blurred.
Better cache merriment, displace high belief
When intending solace, comfort, consolation, relief.
Blues seek companions wrought from severe rain,
Sunshine won’t validate, though will ignite pain.
Numb glee brings living where few truly dwell;
Wounds need acknowledgement for folks to get well.
Faltering In Ways Uncharted
Unable to repent such vices
As stirred within my home,
I’m faltering in ways uncharted.
Those troubling tributaries flowed
Through this place of birth when
My father touched me.
No folded blanket comfort wraps
Conciliatory warmth’s safety,
Or consoled me, as I cried.
Yet, worse monsters patrol halls. At the threat
Of being belted, I long feigned
“I’m happy with Daddy.”
My Bio: KJ Hannah Greenberg's layered narratives have been published/accepted in an eclectic mix, of dozens of venues, worldwide, including: Australia's Language and Culture Magazine, and Antipodean SF, Israel's Mishpacha Magazine, The Jerusalem Post, and The Shiur Times, the UK's Morpheus Tales, The Mother Magazine, and Winamop, and the USA's AlienSkin Magazine, The American Journal of Semiotics, joyful! and The Externalist. She is a former National Endowment for the Humanities scholar, the mother of adolescent sons and daughters, and the caretaker of an entire hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs.
Motivation: "Simple Combinations" was a fantastic exercise in high school dynamics. "Smiler" was an exercise in understnding human nature. "Faltering in Ways Uncharted" was an exercise in defining someone else's agony.
Email TSJ:
shinesubmit@fastmail.us
